La produzione di tessere musive a Milano tra IV e V sec.? Un’indagine archeologico-archeometrica

The paper aims to test the hypothesis – known in literature – of the existence of a workshop producing glass tesserae in Milan. The topic is addressed by means of an interdisciplinary approach, but with a fundamental role played by archaeometric analyses performed on the sites of San Lorenzo (late 4th-early 5th c.) and San Giovanni alle Fonti (late 5th-early 6th c.). The analyses show how the supply of raw materials and the colouring and opacifying techniques change between the late 4th and the early 6th century. The tesserae from San Lorenzo appear to have been imported, while most of those from San Giovanni – opacified with a tin-based procedure, not recorded so far in any other analysed mosaic glass from Italy – could perhaps have been produced locally.